The present invention relates to electronic word processing and, more particularly, an electronic word processing apparatus for compounding a plurality of attribute patterns in any combination with an input character pattern and printing thereby obtained data.
An electronic word processing apparatus, e.g., an electronic typewriter of dot matrix type registers a character pattern, corresponding to a character code input by a key operation. The typewriter edits and prints the patterns in units of lines or pages and allows easy character correction. Therefore, such an electronic typewriter provides better functions than a manual typewriter or an electric typewriter. An electronic typewriter can also print in different modes by compounding attribute patterns with basic character patterns, e.g., underline, enhancement (character thickness is increased), or double width (character size is doubled) modes.
In such an electronic typewriter, a slide switch or the like is used to designate compounding of such attribute patterns. For example, underline, enhancement, and double width modes are designated by setting the slide switch at three positions. This means that only a single attribute pattern can be assigned to each position of the switch, and only this pattern can be compounded with the basic character pattern. The number of printing modes provided is thus limited.